As the smoke clears from the Republican political battlefield and the dead and wounded are accounted for, it is clear that a substantial number of “outsider” candidates knocked off established officeholders during this primary cycle, the main one being 11-term Congressman Jack Kingston who was narrowly defeated for the U.S. Senate nomination by businessman David Perdue. (Read more about that in an accompanying article by Louis Mayeux.)
At the state legislative level, perhaps the biggest incumbent loss was another Republican Jack— veteran state Sen. Jack Murphy of Cumming, chairman of the Regulated Utilities and Industries Committee. He was ousted by Michael Williams who garnered a whopping 66 percent of the vote.
For observers who want to analyze GOP electoral strength, let’s understand how Georgia’s key congressional districts voted and what that meant in the Perdue-Kingston race. Consider these facts:
* Kingston greatly improved his numbers in metro Atlanta during the runoff. He tripled his votes in the 6th Congressional District held by Rep. Tom Price (no doubt with assistance from former Secretary of State Karen Handel of Fulton County, who campaigned hard for the Savannah congressman). He also tripled his vote in the 11th Congressional District held by outgoing Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta.
* Unfortunately for Kingston, though, the turnout effort in his south Georgia home base was somehow neglected. In his own coastal congressional district, he got 5,000 fewer votes in the runoff than in the May 20 primary. The same held true for the adjoining 12th District held by Rep. Rep. John Barrow of Augusta.
* Perdue won 10 of Georgia’s 14 congressional districts and came close to winning 11 districts (narrowly losing Rep. Sanford Bishop’s district to Kingston).
* Eighteen of the 20 largest voting counties in the runoff went for Perdue (the exceptions are Chatham and Glynn counties).
* As this writer has noted before, the large majority of Georgia’s overall Republican vote is generated north of Interstate-20. It tallied 57 percent on May 20; it appears to have reached 59 percent this time.
Republican candidates and their consultants, looking toward the fall general election campaign, can now better identify areas of strength where they need to pump up their votes. They can take heart in these base Republican numbers— especially if the Perdue-Kingston camps unite quickly. And it appears they are.
